London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Islington 1860

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Islington, Parish of St Mary]

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man's Place North and Bowman's Mews, in which together there were 9 cases
and 2 deaths; Upper Whittington Place, 3 cases.
In Lower Holloway—Blundell Street gave 4 cases and 1 death, and George Street
4 cases.
In Thornhill Ward—I ascertained in Netherland Place 8 cases and 2 deaths; in
Caledonia Street, 10 cases; in Sydney Street, 4 cases and 2 deaths ; in Bemerton
Street, 4 cases and 1 death.
In Barnsbury Ward—I ascertained in Denmark Grove, 7 cases and 1 death; in Henry
Place, 5 cases and 1 death.
In St. Mary's Ward—I ascertained in Albert Square, 4 cases.
In Canonbury Ward—I ascertained in Frederick's Place, Balls Pond, 3 cases and 1
death.
In St. Peter's Ward—I ascertained in Pickering Street, 4 cases; in Sidney Grove
(where scarlet fever formerly prevailed to a frightful extent—see Report for
1859, p. 5), 9 cases; in Elder Walk, 8 cases and 1 death; in Britannia Row, 6
cases and 1 death.
The names of most of these places are already familiar to you as those where the
population is crowded, ignorant, and careless, and where other zymotic maladies
flourish and extend.
It is interesting, and perhaps may be instructive, to notice the order in which
these several districts were attacked by the epidemic. Compared with the population
of the districts, the Ward which earliest exhibited the greatest proportion of cases was
Upper Holloway, the locality earliest and most severely attacked being the neighbourhood
of the Small-Pox Hospital. Even in 1858 two deaths from small-pox had occurred
in Gordon Court. From July 1859 to March 1860, 27 cases, 11 of which were fatal—
between a half and a third of the whole number—occurred within my knowledge in
this Ward and neighbourhood. It is difficult to divert one's mind of the idea that
this high fatality might not only have been attributable to the period of the epidemic,
but to the large doses of the atmospheric poison imbibed. From Upper Holloway
the disease appears to have travelled in its greatest intensity into Thornhill Ward.
Cases appeared to have become more numerous there during the summer months of
1859, 14 cases, only 2 of which, or one-seventh, were fatal, having been noticed
between May and September. In December, just as the disease appeared to be subsiding
somewhat in Upper Holloway, came the first warnings of the renewed outbreak
in Thornhill Ward, and between this time and March 53 cases occurred, of which 10,
or about one-fifth, were fatal. Lower Holloway and Highbury Wards about the
same time felt to a more moderate extent the shock of the epidemic, 16 cases with
only 1 death, however, occurring in the former Ward, and 9 cases, without any
death, in the latter. In fact, it is well worthy of remark that, in Highbury and St.
Mary's Wards, no single death from small-pox occurred throughout the two
years.
In St. Peter's Ward the violence of the epidemic appeared late. Cases had
occurred throughout the epidemic, but had not exceeded 6 in the month (of November).
As the disease, however, was subsiding in Thornhill, it began to spread more
extensively in this part of the Eastern Sub-district, 31 cases having come to my
knowledge during March, April, and May, 1860, of which 5 or one-sixth were fatal.
Taking the entire number of cases in each Ward, the fatality of the disease was